Nike Camp Comes To Oregon

Grant Gibson

06/04/2002

The 51st consecutive Nike Football Camp comes to the University of
Oregon Saturday June 8 capping five years of Nike sponsored camps and a
final opportunity this year for high school kids to come and receive
instruction and possible college recruiting notoriety.

Over 4,500 prep football players have been invited to the free camps
around the country this year with 2,950 kids attending camps thus far in
Chapel Hill, N.C., Miami Fla., Los Angeles, Calif., Lansing, Mich.,
University Park, Pa., Tuscaloosa, Ala., Athens, Ga., College Station,
Texas, Boulder, Colo., and Palo Alto, Calif. The Eugene, Ore. camp, the
only camp held in the Pacific Northwest, has received confirmations from
256 players from over eight states.

The camps are managed by Student Sports magazine and a host of local and
traveling high school football coaches willing to contribute their time
to help high school football players develop their speed, agility and
quickness. In years past, current and former NFL players have also been
on hand to counsel the would-be college and Pro prospects. In addition,
prolific personal trainers and speed merchants such as Matt James and
Tom Shaw are available to provide advice and perspective.

"The Nike Football Camps are really speed enhancement camps," says
Brentt Eads, Student Sports senior vice president. "Although we do offer
testing in order to give the kids a benchmark for improvement, it's
inaccurate to call the camps a combine. The enhancement to recruiting
exposure that the numbers contribute are really secondary to the primary
goals of the camps - to help the kids get faster and more explosive on
the field."

The performances marked at the camps in the 40-yard dash, vertical jump,
shuttle, bench press, height and weight measurements can help kids
receive college-recruiting exposure not only by Student Sports but other
media. Eads estimates that over the last 2-3 years 30 percent of all
eligible kids receiving Division 1 College scholarships went to a Nike
camp.

Notes:
The camp is free to all kids who sign up in advance through Student
Sports. Starting time is 11:00 a.m. The camp
will be held around the University of Oregon athletic complex in and
around the Moshofsky Center and outdoor practice fields. The University
of Oregon will host its football camp Sunday, June 9, the day proceeding
the Nike Camp.